[Mickoid (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Anth10

Light pollution or not, that turned out like a gem Mick. Mate the dust is piling up on my Newt and yours is soaking in the photons! Keep it up Mick, your always having a crack, hats off to you��

Thanks Anthony, there's an easy solution, blow off that dust and get out there, still plenty of interesting objects to discover and photograph, I enjoy the peace and solitude out under the stars and I'm happy once I've made the effort. I know it's hard to find motivation sometimes.

Originally Posted by mental4astro

I've been following this thread develop and reading about the technical difficulties, and I keep coming back to your pic with all of this in my mind, and I'm liking this photo of yours more and more

The soft, teetering glow of the spiral, with its tenuous dark lanes, and diffuse eye-like core, it now looks increasingly more like a far distant background ghost with a curtain of sharp, multi-coloured foreground stars. There's a neat 3D effect going on here. Move your head and the foreground stars almost seem to move too across 2997... Having the galaxy more brilliant and sharper would diminish the charm of this photo.

I really like it more and more

Alex.

Thanks Alex, that's the description from an artist and I've had a look at some of your sketches, I can see why you enjoy this shot because it is subtle and similar to what you might see through the eyepiece. Feel free to sketch it if you want!